Ah, General MIDI. The absolute gold standard of beige, 1990s computer audio. If you have ever played a MS-DOS adventure game, endured the background music of a GeoCities fan page, or sung at a slightly rundown karaoke bar, you already know this soundset intimately. This CD is E-MU’s official, legally mandated collection of the 128 standardized instruments agreed upon by the tech industry.

The Bureaucracy of Sound: All 128 General MIDI instruments are present and accounted for. You get the mandatory Acoustic Grand Piano, the ubiquitous Slap Bass, and, of course, the wildly unnecessary sound effects like “Helicopter,” “Telephone Ring,” and “Gunshot.”

The “Luxury” 8MB Bank: For the high-rolling producers who want their standardized pan flute to have just a little bit of extra sustain and sonic prestige.

The 4MB Middle Ground: The pragmatic choice. It says, “I care about audio quality, but I also need room in RAM for a vocal sample.”

The 2MB Diet Plan: The exact same 128 instruments, aggressively crammed into the digital equivalent of a shoebox. Prepare for incredibly short sample loops and a level of audio compression that screams “Windows 95 startup sequence.”

Ready to be digested by your E4 Ultras, EOS, and ESI samplers. There is something incredibly funny about taking a high-end, professional hardware sampler and using it to load the exact same MIDI soundbank that came pre-installed on every consumer SoundBlaster card in 1996. It’s like putting cheap, regular unleaded fuel into a vintage sports car.